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Oly Town, Tacoma grab big road wins

(Wilson Tsoi)

The Oly Town Artesians and Tacoma Stars grabbed big road victories on Saturday night December 13. Oly Town scored with 12 seconds left in the match to edge the Arlington Aviators 7-6. In Wenatchee the Tacoma Stars were led by a five-goal performance from Derek Johnson as they exploded in the second half for a 12-6 win over the Wenatchee Fire. The results mean the standings table now sees the Stars remain in first place at 3-0-0 with 9 points while Oly Town jumps into second place at 2-1-0 with six standings points.

Club

Points

Wins

Losses

Ties

GF

GA

Goal + / –

TACOMA STARS

9

3

0

0

24

14

+10

OLY TOWN ARTESIANS

6

2

1

0

22

22

0

BELLINGHAM UNITED

4

1

1

1

17

14

+3

WENATCHEE FIRE

4

1

2

1

24

30

-6

ARLINGTON AVIATORS

0

0

3

0

12

19

-7

Read both winning club match reports below.

GAME RECAP: Oly Town Artesians 7, Arlington Aviators 6

ARLINGTON, WA— (OlyTownFC.com)The Oly Town Artesians scored three goals over less than two minutes in the fourth quarter and Matt Stalnik’s strike with 12.5 seconds left broke a 6-6 tie and handed the Artesians a 7-6 win over the Arlington Aviators in Western Indoor Soccer League action on Saturday night. Wille Spurr and Greg Wolfe each scored twice and the Artesians moved into sole possession of second place in the WISL with the win.

The night got off to a rip-roaring start for the Artesians when Greg Wolfe struck on the first possession just 15 seconds into the game off an assist from Matt Stalnik. Aaron Burns tied the game up seven minutes later and the Aviators took the lead on a Russ Brown power play goal with 2:15 left in the first quarter. Oly’s Willie Spurr went into the air and found the back of the net on a fantastic goal with 30 second left and the first 15 minutes ended with the two teams tied 2-2.

Winfred Smith drew first blood in the second quarter to put the Aviators up 3-2 at the 13:30 mark. The lead wouldn’t last long as Martin Ramirez scored 90 seconds later to pull the Artesians even at 4-4. But the blue cards mounted for the Artesians and the Aviators scored their second power play goal of the game when Miguel Fajardo found the back of the net and the half ended with Arlington on top, 4-3.

The two teams went scoreless in the third but erupted four six goals in the final period. The Aviators struck first when Burns streaked past the Artesians defense and beat keeper Mauricio Sanchez one-on-one to give Arlington a 5-3 lead. They looked perfectly in control dominating possession and limiting Artesians shots through the first 10 minutes of the fourth quarter.

Matt Stalnik scored the winner for Oly Town with 12 seconds to go. (Wilson Tsoi)

Then the Artesians woke up. Spurr got Oly to within a goal, 5-4, at the 4:48 mark. Less than a minute later, Nate Salveson unleashed a howler that beat Aviators keeper Eric Cruz to tie the game 5-5. Following a turnover on the restart after Salveson’s goal, Wolfe scored his second of the game just ten second later to give Oly the 6-5 lead.

With 3:10 left, the Aviators were shown a blue card to put the Artesians on the power play for two minutes and it looked like Oly would coast to the finish line. But Brown found the side of the net with 1:30 left to play and it looked like the Oly Town comeback would fall just short of the W.

But with 12.5 seconds left, Stalnik placed himself on the back post and when a shot across the box found him in the perfect position to drill one home and give the Artesians a 7-6 lead. Stalnik, for is effort, was slammed into the boards by the Aviators’ Andrew Escalante on a late and reckless challenge and suffered a nasty looking injury to his knee. The extent of the injury will not be known for a couple of days.

After a lengthy delay for the injury, Escalante was shown a red card for his challenge and a blue card was issued to the Artesians’ Ramirez for arguing, the Aviators had one last shot but Sanchez made another save and the Artesians were able to run out the clock on a 7-6 comeback win over the Aviators.

With the win, the Artesians picked up three more points and sit alone in second place behind the Tacoma Stars. Oly leapfrogged Wenatchee, who fell to Tacoma 12-6 on their home field, and Bellingham, who were idle on Saturday night. Oly travels to Whatcom County next week to take on Bellingham United at 7:30 PM.

The Oly Town Artesians return to Olympia Indoor Soccer after the Holidays and will get a rematch with Bellingham on January 3rd. First kick is scheduled for 6:00 PM and advance tickets are available at http://www.olytownfc.com

WENATCHEE, WA— (TacomaStars.com) The Tacoma Stars and the Wenatchee Fire were knotted up 4-4 at halftime in their Western Indoor Soccer League match on Saturday December 13 at the Wenatchee Valley Sportsplex. Then a supernova second half from Tacoma blinded the home side and kept the Stars unbeaten.Tacoma scored 8 goals combined over the third and fourth quarters. The final score was 12-6.

Kyle Danielson scored two crucial third quarter goals for the Stars and Derek Johnson was just getting warmed up as he scored one to pull the Stars ahead 7-4 after three quarters.

In the fourth quarter the match exploded as seven goals were scored, five of them by the Stars.Derek Johnson kept right on scoring, making it 8-4 Tacoma and then 9-4 as he notched a hat trick. Meanwhile Jamael Cox was also helping to douse the Fire, scoring a pair of his own. One more from Derek for a total of five on the night brought the Stars tally to an even dozen. Wenatchee knocked in a couple of their own as the nets singed and the scoreboard read 12-6 at the buzzer.

The Stars were pleased that 10 of their 12 goals had assists, a sign that the team is coming together.

“It’s great to see so many names on the score sheet,” says General Manager John Crouch. “Aaron (Anderson, Stars goalkeeper) played out of his mind with 30 saves and only 4 goals scored on him. Our team is starting to get to know each other and they really enjoyed themselves as thy got ‘the feeling’ tonight of performing at a very high level. I couldn’t be more proud of our group.”

In the first half Tacoma was down early before getting level at 4’s. Along with the first of five from Johnson the Stars also got first half goals from Adam West, Chris Raymond, and PJ Vargas. The Fire got first-half goals from Herman Mendoza, Josh Alvarez, Matthew Stefanko and Elias Lopez. (Wenatchee’s second half goal scorers not yet available.)

A few Satellites traveled to support the team. They took the photos in this article. The locker room video was captured by Stars General Manager John Crouch.

The Stars are now 3-0-0 on the WISL season (5-0-0 in all matches) with 9 standings points and remain in first place. The Fire fall to 1-2-1 with 4 standings points.

Tacoma returns home to the Tacoma Soccer Center next Saturday December 20 to host the Arlington Aviators. In the other WISL match of the night the Oly Town Artesians scored with 12 seconds left to beat Arlington 7-6. The Aviators will arrive in Tacoma winless in league play at 0-0-3. Tickets to the Tacoma-Arlington match are available online.